Bees, aggressive after hive treatment, attack pedestrian

Neighbors help rescue woman from stinging

Mary Flynn opens a bag with one of the bees that attacked her Monday and shows the visor she broke slapping at them as they swarmed.
Mike Baird/Caller-Times

A Monday night walk for Mary Flynn ended with more than 20 bee stings after an exterminator sent to treat a beehive at a home on Lake Apache Drive raced past her in his white bee suit.

"The color of the world changed into gray matter," said Flynn, 58, a retired hypnotherapist, who had taken a shortcut home to end a cardiac walk around a neighborhood lake with her husband. "I had just told him I was really pooped, and there I was running in zig-zags down the street like a crazy woman with these bees swirling around my head like a tornado."

The hive site was treated again Wednesday afternoon and evening, said Thomas Tran, owner of the home on Lake Apache Drive. "The exterminators were just doing their job," said Tran, a physician. "They told me to stay indoors, and I did; these guys have no control over bees, if people see someone in a bee hood they should go the other way."

Flynn was struck without time to think about it, she said. "All I saw was this guy in a suit running and jumping onto the bed of a pickup, and he stood up smacking himself as the driver raced away," Flynn said. "They even left the ladder on the side of the house."

Excel Pest Control treated the problem three times, and owner John Kaminski said Thursday they didn't know whether the bees were Africanized. "But they were very aggressive," he said, "and we're confident they have now been exterminated."

Before her walk, Flynn had slathered her legs with mosquito repellent, and had smeared sunscreen heavily on her face. "The bees still covered my chest and the top of my head, and I ran swatting both places with my plastic visor," she said. "The fear hit so bad, I didn't even realize I was being stung."

While being attacked she bolted toward the door of a neighbor's home where she recently had stopped for a yard sale. Hobart Pillsbury yanked her through his door after hearing her yelling "Bees, bees..." Flynn said. "He was so sweet -- saying 'Sorry, sorry...' each time he slapped one with his newspaper."

Pillsbury couldn't be reached for a comment, but Flynn said he and his wife, Rita, helped her by killing the bees still on her, and finding an earring lost in the frenzy before driving her home. Stings left more than 20 pea-sized bumps on her scalp and some stings on her neck left peach-pit-sized knots, Flynn said. Despite the repellent she was stung twice on her legs.

During the bee attack her husband Bill Flynn, 60, had finished his extended walk and was locked out of their home.

"I figured Mary stopped to talk to somebody," the retired civil engineer said. He had no idea, he said, that his wife was busy "buzzing through the neighborhood."